The Summer Before: Rose's Story
by MadameDragonFlower
Summary: A brief story of Rose Gable, an original Soul Eater character. Rose is a meister who finds that she has a unique ability during the tragic events of the summer before she came to study at the DWMA. Rated M for violence.


Rose Gable's abilities began to significantly manifest themselves at the age of twelve. The bright-eyed, red headed child had always been somewhat fey, so her parents kept her very sheltered from an early age. It was no real surprise then, when she began asking her parents why they were "blue" colored and how did she make her "bubble" stay still.

Her parents knew then that their only daughter should go to the Death Weapon Meister Academy for the schooling of her abilities, but they couldn't bear to send her away. Rose was a delicate child of a nervous disposition who was very sweet-natured, but scared easily. Her parents decided it wouldn't hurt to wait a few years. That is, until the events of her fourteenth Summer.

Rose pushed herself slowly on the swing in her backyard garden, listening to her friend Jenna speak with a serious expression on her face. Jenna was one of two friends she had, children of her parents' friends.

"So you see what I mean?" Jenna finished with frustration, ripping at the grass from where she lounged on a bench. "Jeremy won't even look at me. How am I supposed to get his attention? Nothing I try works!"

"I dunno, Jen," Rose replied to the girl a year her elder from her seat on the swing. "I don't go to school, so I don't know how that sort of thing works."

"I know, I know. You'd help if you could. But you do agree that he's cute, right?" Jenna asked, sitting up on the bench and flourishing a picture.

Rose stopped swinging and obediently examined the picture yet again. She'd looked at it at least four times just today. The picture was still the same. A boy about two years Rose's senior with brown hair and blue eyes smiled from within the borders of the picture. He was wearing a sports uniform and had a soccer ball tucked under one arm. Jenna had told Rose the only reason she had the picture was because she had seen the boy's ex-girlfriend throw it away.

"He's definitely cute," Rose said, handing the picture back and sitting beside Jenna on the bench.

Jenna sighed over the picture before tucking it back into her pocket. She turned Rose around on the bench and began braiding the younger girl's long red hair. "I wish I could have your hair, Rose," she said wistfully as she braided. "With red hair like this I'd be sure to get Jeremy's attention."

"I'd rather have your blonde hair," Rose replied. "You're more than welcome to have all the attention my red hair brings."

Jenna snorted. "It's just wasted on you, isn't it?"

"Hey, you two!" A boy's voice called out from the doorway of the house.

The girls looked over to see another blonde head, this one belonging to a boy the same age as Jenna. He was a short and stocky boy, obviously just about to hit a major growth spurt. Just now his round cheeks were emphasized by the wide smile he had on his face.

"Trevor!" Jenna laughed. "What are you doing here?" She got up and gave him a hug as he came over to the garden area.

"I thought you were supposed to be in France?" Rose asked softly as Trevor bent to give her a hug as well.

"My parents had a change of plans," he replied apologetically. "Apparently something came up at Dad's office, so we had to come straight back from India." He shrugged with a sardonic smile.

Jenna sat back on the bench, pulling the braids out of Rose's hair and brushing her fingers through the locks to untangle it. "Never mind that you went along with them this time just so you could see France afterwards, right?" Jenna asked.

Trevor shrugged again. "It's not as though I wasn't used to disappointment when it comes to my father. He's never come through on a promise before. Why should he start now?"

"Still," Jenna persisted, turning to face Trevor in annoyance, "It's not right for hi—"

Jenna's voice was cut off by the sound of a crash and a piercing scream from the house. The three children exchanged startled looks. Rose flinched as another crash was heard from the house.

"Come on!" Jenna yelled as she started for the house at a run, Trevor right beside her. Rose followed quickly after. Something felt very wrong about the house. Had her mother fallen? But her dad was home, certainly he'd been there to help prevent any serious injury? What had the second crash been?

The three of them entered the house through the back door, making their way to the front of the house where they could hear scuffling and thumps. They found their way to the front room within a cloud of dust. There was debris scattered everywhere with one of the brick walls of the house collapsed outward from the room and pieces of drywall still falling in chunks from the second story above.

"Papa…!" Rose exclaimed at a whisper from behind her two friends. She'd caught sight of her parents off to the left against one of the remaining three walls. Her mother was sitting against the wall, supporting Rose's father in her lap. Her father's face was tight with pain, one hand holding his side, while one of his legs was twisted around at an unnatural angle. Her parents' attention wasn't on the entrance of their daughter, however, their attention was on the figure in the center of the wreckage.

A girl the same age as Rose stood there, her eyes wide and unfocused. Curly brown hair framed her face, the expression on which was nowhere close to sane. Shorts and a tank top did nothing to hide the deep gashes the girl had on her thighs, arms, and abdomen. Blood seemed to ooze from her wounds, puddling at her feet. Or was it?

Rose squinted through the haze of dust around them, trying to focus on the girl's blood. It didn't seem right. Blood was supposed to be red, right? This girl's blood was… black?

"Cindy?" Jenna's voice broke the quiet. "What happened? Are you alright?" She began climbing over the debris to get to the brown-haired girl in the center.

"Jenna, no!" Rose's mother screamed, her voice pitched high in panic.

Jenna stopped halfway through the room, turning to look at Mrs. Gable. As Rose watched, the blood at Cindy's feet began to move of its own accord, solidifying and reaching out to grab Jenna with long, interlinking chains. Jenna screamed as she was lifted off the ground and thrown bodily across the room, falling in a heap on some overturned furniture. It was over in an instant.

Trevor took a step backwards into Rose as Cindy began cackling wildly, throwing her head back with insane-sounding laughter, the blood still in the form of chains hovering around her. Rose quivered, looking at the girl who had been her closest friend before this moment. To Rose's green eyes, a red aura seemed to emanate from Cindy's body. A perversion of what had been a normal human soul the last time they had been together. But that had been over a month ago.

Cindy's father had recently lost his job and gotten into an argument with Rose's parents. The aftermath was that Cindy and her father no longer came over to visit. Rose had been worried for her friend; Cindy had lost her mother to a car accident a few months before her father lost his job and was not taking the loss well at all. But what could Rose have done? She didn't have any way of persuading Cindy's father that his disagreement shouldn't keep Cindy away from her own friends.

Rose's father seemed to have spotted her from across the room. "Rose—" he choked, trying to push himself up. "Run! Get out of here!" Rose's mother pulled him back down in worry, then both of them froze as Cindy's laughter stopped. Rose continued to stand in the doorway, frozen in place by fear. Trevor bolted back through the house, leaving the way they had come in. Perhaps he was running for help? Rose didn't know and her attention was taken up by the situation unfolding in front of her.

Cindy turned, her eyes picking out Rose's parents against the wall. Her face split into a grin.

"I see. Yes, it's you two. You're the reason, didn't you know?" Cindy's childish voice rang out.

"W-what reason?" Rose's mother stammered.

Cindy simply laughed again in response. "That's alright. I can eat you, anyway." The chains around her began slithering around almost like snakes, then jerked unnaturally, reversing their direction and moving towards Rose's parents.

"Stop," Rose's voice was soft, but firm, as she took a step forward into the room.

Cindy's chains stopped, her attention diverted to Rose. "Stop?" Cindy asked, her expression looked curious at first, then pain flashed across her features before her expression hardened again, the grin returning.

"Dessert," Cindy said. "Dad never let me have dessert first." She stared at Rose intensely.

Rose continued to move forward, her legs shaking so badly she slipped and nearly fell as she stepped over a board. She regained her balance as Cindy began laughing again. What was she doing? Her thoughts fluttered in her mind like trapped bees. The only thing that seemed to penetrate the buzzing fear was the thought that Cindy needed her.

"This i-isn't you, Cindy," Rose stammered. "I-I know th-that it isn't you." Rose's body began to glow with a soft blue light as she took another step. Her mother gasped, but the sound couldn't be heard over Cindy's laughter.

"Yes, definitely dessert," Cindy growled as the chains made another unnatural turn and struck out at Rose.

Rose flinched and closed her eyes as the first chain reached her. She opened her eyes again in bewilderment as she felt a warm liquid splash her rather than the fatal blow she had been expecting. She looked down at her hands and chest in shock, seeing bright red blood splashed across her. It wasn't her blood, nothing had touched her to make her bleed. The chains were made of black blood, so where had this come from? She had her answer a moment later as another chain lashed out at her, liquefying into bright red blood the instant it came into contact with the blue glow surrounding her.

Cindy stopped laughing with a scream of frustration, her eyes narrowing to slits as she regarded Rose. Rose took heart in her seeming good luck and began stepping forward again, small step by small step. Two more chains seemed to unwind themselves from inside the wounds in Cindy's legs, joining the others in circling around Rose and then tightening as though to strangle the girl's small body in a giant noose.

Like before, the chains liquefied upon contact with Rose's blue glow, splashing the girl and the room scarlet. Rose closed the remaining steps between them as Cindy screamed again, too surprised to back away as Rose reached out and took Cindy's hand. The black colored blood that was beginning to form into new chains froze for a second, poised in mid-formation.

Cindy's eyes dilated, sense returning to them as she stared at Rose. Cindy smiled sweetly.

"Thank-you, Rose. My friend," Cindy whispered. Then her body went limp, the blood around them splashing to the ground, great red stains across the destruction of the room.

Rose grabbed her friend, trying to lower her gently to the ground. The gashes on Cindy's body were now bright red. Fresh wounds staring up at Rose, as she took in everything that had just happened.

Suddenly Cindy's body seemed to spiral into nothing, leaving behind a small glowing blue ball hovering in the air. Rose took the glow into her hands where she had sank to the ground. Somehow, she knew that this was her friend's soul. A good soul. Clean. Pure.

Rose held the soul to her chest, then looked around for her parents. Were they alright? Did something happen to them? She caught sight of them just before the world started to go dark. She felt herself sliding down, down into darkness as she passed out.


End file.
